1. Field
Methods and apparatuses consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a photography apparatus, and more particularly, to a photography apparatus for photographing a high-quality three-dimensional (3D) image and a photography method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
With the development of 3D image technologies, a camera for photographing a 3D image has been developed.
A perceivable 3D effect may be roughly divided into monocular cues and binocular cues. Monocular cues may be based on a degree of thickness change of a crystalline lens according to a position of an object to be observed, a difference in angle between both eyes and an object, a difference in positions and shapes of an object observed by each eye, disparity due to movement of an object, psychological or memory-related effects, and the like.
The binocular cues use binocular disparity, which occurs as both eyes are spaced 6 to 7 cm from each other in a horizontal direction. Such binocular cue may be the most important factor of a 3D effect. That is, a human observes an object from two different angles due to the binocular disparity, and each eye recognizes a different image due to the difference. In response to the different images being transferred to a brain through retinas, the brain precisely combines the different images, and the viewer is able to recognize the original 3D image.
In general, a 3D image camera photographs a subject by giving a certain distance between a left eye image and a right eye image, thereby maximizing the 3D effect. In response to generating a 3D image, the 3D image camera generates a depth map to set a depth value with respect to a subject of the image.
A depth map is a table including depth information on each area of a 3D image. The depth information relates to each area or each pixel of a 3D image frame, and represents a distance between the area or pixel, and a viewing position. An object having far depth is an image part shown as being distant from a viewing position, and an object having close depth is an image part shown as being close to the viewing position. A 3D camera photographs a left eye image and a right eye image by using two camera modules and calculates a depth map by using the left eye image and the right eye image.
Quality of the depth map varies depending upon a distance between the two camera modules. Specifically, as the distance between the two camera modules increases, the depth map accurately expresses depth information, but a boundary of an object becomes unclear due to data loss of an area where the left eye image and the right image overlap. As the distance between the two camera modules decreases, an accurate object may be obtained because the area where the left eye image and the right image overlap is reduced, but the depth map may not accurately express the distance to the object.
Accordingly, there is a need for a 3D image photographing apparatus capable of generating a depth map having accurate and abundant depth information.